At the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday, an errant side mirror from the Williams ended up on the front straight, causing some brief yellow flags that Norris did not heed to, resulting in a 10-second stop-and-go penalty and effectively ending his day.
Let’s take a look at the data and see what actually happened.
A wing mirror sits in the middle of the straight as Perez and Hamilton drive by.
First, lets look at the normal braking points for reference. This was the lap before the yellow, lap 29:
Between 600-650 meters is the normal braking point.
Now lets look at the next lap, focusing on the top drivers who actually saw the yellow flag—remember, the yellow flag only came out for a moment, and then was removed for several laps until the mirror was run over by Bottas.
Here we see that the flag actually came out late into the straight for Max, who throttled down almost 200 meters before normal. Norris was further back down the straight and did not lift, and Leclerc (who was behind Piastri, not shown) lifted a quite early, throttled back up, then down again.
Piastri was right behind Norris and lifted very early, while Sainz was behind Leclerc and throttled down about 100 meters early. And by the time Perez came around, the flags were gone.
By these traces, it’s clear that Norris was the heaviest infringer here. So I’d say a penalty was warranted. However, a few questions remain.
First, what’s considered sufficient slowing for a yellow flag? Verstappen lifted completely, while Leclerc lifted slightly and seemed unsure of where to continue on, and Sainz went through the majority of the flag area at full throttle and lifted near the actual debris.
And second, why was the yellow flag rescinded with no change in the situation? If the mirror was deemed hazardous, then every driver should have been made to lift in that section (or more reasonably, a VSC should have been deployed to keep the field even until the piece was removed).
This issue was clear as day and folks at home could have reacted in an instant, but it took the race director six laps to decide what to do, and it was only prompted by Bottas hitting the debris and two punctures coming at the same time.
Just to emphasize the differences, here’s the speed differences of the Top 6 going into turn 1 on Lap 30, and as you can see Norris is just well ahead of the rest of the field (although I should note that the rest of the field, with maybe Max as the exception, were all going almost 300 kph through the majority of the straight until the actual debris point.)
Monaco has always been the most prestigious event in all of motorsport. It shares a weekend with the Indy 500, known as the Greatest Spectacle in Motorsport, and it makes up one-third of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, which also includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This past weekend, however, there was little argument to be had that this event should continue to be mentioned in the same breath as the others.
While the 500 reaffirmed its claim to its prized title, the Monaco Grand Prix has fallen from grace. Maybe not for the celebrities and honorable guests that attend the party in person, but for the millions around the world who watch on TV—and for the drivers themselves.
What Happened
This year, a first-lap red flag threw any element of strategy out the window when most teams decided to change tires under red onto the hard tire and take them to the finish line, fulfilling their two-tire compound requirement. Leclerc led every lap and won handily, and there was never a moment where the result was in any doubt. (To be fair, you could say that about most F1 races for the past two seasons.)
To add insult to injury, Ferrari and Sainz were handed a gift via an F1 rules technicality. After Sainz picked up a puncture at the exit of turn 1 and then couldn’t get the car turned in at turn 4, the red flag put him back into 3rd again for the restart since the flag came out before all cars made it through sector 1. Despite all common sense indicating that he should be at the back of the field, F1 rules trumped reason as they commonly do.
After the race, sentiment on social media was poor. However, perhaps more concerning for F1 and Monaco were the references to just how boring the race was by the commentary teams and the drivers themselves.
When the drivers are struggling to stay entertained when they’re the ones in the freaking race, how can you expect the fans thousands of miles away to be excited or engaged?
Trending the Wrong Way
Monaco wasn’t always this boring. In the past decade of races (9 races), 44% of pole-sitters won, there was an average of less than 1 lead change per race, and the average starting position of the winner was 1.8.
From 1995-2004 (10 races), the pole-sitter won just 20% of races, there were an average of 2.5 lead changes per race, and the average starting position of the eventual winner was 3.2. However, there was a big outlier in 96. Without that, the average starting position was 2, fairly similar to today’s average.
As you can see, starting position of the winner is heavily influenced by one outlier.
Common Sense Fixes
While no changes can guarantee a better race on such a narrow, low-speed circuit, it became clear this year that something has to be done. Doing nothing at this point would be negligent and outright disrespectful to the fans.
Max Verstappen and George Russell offered their tongue-in-cheek solutions in their post-race interviews, suggesting “5 mandatory pit stops”, “refueling”, “one lap on foot”, and a “mandatory nap”.
Lewis Hamilton also suggested adding mandatory pitstops.
I think there are some general rule changes that could benefit every race—not just Monaco—as well as some changes that they could make to the Monaco format itself, such as the addition of mandatory stops or extra-soft compounds with higher degradation.
Tire changes under red don’t satisfy the two-compound rule
This one is the most obvious to me, and seems to be a point of agreement among broadcasters and fans alike, but changing your tires under a red flag should not mean that you are allowed to go the whole race without stopping. Maybe they need to rethink the rule entirely and make it a mandatory pitstop rule rather than a mandatory two-compound rule. I believe that would better reflect the spirit of the rule. Or do both: one mandatory stop and two mandatory tire compounds. The more decisions that a team needs to make and the more opportunities for various strategies to take hold, the better for the sport.
Add more official timing sectors to determine order
Only the three official sectors, plus the two safety car lines are used for determining order under red-flag conditions.
While McLaren boss Andreas Siedel admitted after Monaco that he still doesn’t think mini-sectors are the appropriate answer, I think there’s a compromise to be made to get more granular positions updated more frequently throughout the lap, without compromising accuracy—a common counter to using mini-sectors.
A map of the current Monaco Circuit.
The main argument against mini-sectors, as explained by this Reddit poster, is that some of them are positioned in such a way that a driver could overshoot or even cut a corner and be “ahead” in a mini-sector, but truly behind if the next mini-sector or two were played out. The user continues, claiming that sectors are chosen in places to prevent that from happening, where cars are typically strung out in single-file.
However, if you look at the Monaco circuit, sector 1 ends in the run down to turn 5, a braking zone where exactly what regular sectors purport to prevent could indeed happen if someone overran the braking point and hit the runoff area: they would find themselves “ahead” at the end of sector 1 but well behind the pack by the time they got spun around.
While three sectors is fine for television, the race stewards should have several more sectors at their disposal for timing decisions. Here’s a simple proposal for a modified map at Monaco. You’ll notice that most of the points occur at or near already naturally-occurring spots on the track, such as the tunnel speed trap or DRS detection zone.
A proposal for additional timing sectors.
You could easily add more without compromising the integrity of the timing, especially at a street circuit like Monaco where there are very few areas to cut corners (we wouldn’t want a sector to be anywhere near the 10-11 chicane for that reason).
Use common sense
This one is vague, but any fan watching the race knew that Sainz deserved to be at the back of the field after that mistake. But the stewards opted to go by the book and reinstate him to 3rd. This is where some steward judgement needs to come in to set things right. Perhaps some lawyer can word this better than me, but if you clearly go off on your own accord and the field passes you by, then you should be at the back of the pack on the restart. Which leads me to my final point.
Let the TV broadcast aid timing decisions
I’d argue you should even use the TV broadcast as a point of reference like every other major sport does these days. Sync the video to timing and see how many cars had passed by Sainz at the moment the red flag came back out. Then determine his position based on that info. If for some reason it’s so close that you can’t clearly tell from TV, then leave things as is or resort to sector timings. But if it’s “clear and obvious”, then by all means let’s get it right.
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin ended up making a crucial mistake as the rain started to fall, opting for a set of Medium compound tires as everyone else jumped on the Intermediates. It ended up costing him an extra pit stop just a lap later and the approximately 25-second delta along with it.
Had he and the team made the correct decision the first time, is it possible that we could’ve had a race for P1 in the final 20 laps?
Let’s use the best intermediate times as a reference to see what could’ve been possible in the crucial lap between Alonso and Max Verstappen’s pitstops.
The Lap Before
On lap 53, the hard was still the fastest tire, with George Russell clocking the fastest lap. So Alonso would have no data to go on to know that the inter would soon be the fastest. Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll would be the first to try them on, with their first full lap of data coming on Lap 53. Of course, Alonso was ahead of them so would have had less time to know the results of those laps as he’d already be well into Lap 54.
Alonso Boxes
Before Alonso’s first pitstop on lap 54, he was 9.8s behind Verstappen. At the end of his first stop, he was up to 26.1s behind, with Verstappen yet to pit, with his stop taking 24.4 seconds in total. If you’re wondering why he wasn’t 34.2s behind, it’s because Verstappen had some major moments on Alonso’s pit-in and pit-out laps that helped ease the damage of his stop tremendously. All the more reason the tire choice was crucial.
On 54, the Medium was the fast tire with Charles Leclerc clocking a 1:35.7 and the fastest Inter a 1:38.7.
Verstappen Boxes
This is where it gets interesting. While the Hard, this time of Lewis Hamilton, was yet again still the faster tire on Lap 55, the Inter was only 1.5s slower and closing the gap as people still on slicks started to slide.
Verstappen would make his one and only pit stop on lap 55 in 24.8 seconds, coming back out on the Inters. However, a major point is his in-lap, which was an astonishing 130.6 seconds, 31.5s slower than Alonso’s in-lap a lap before! This theoretically does Alonso massive favors, essentially erasing any time he lost in the pits.
Alonso Boxes Again
On the same lap, Alonso would pit a second time for Inters as well, this time in 25.9 seconds, and unerasing the advantage that Verstappen handed him that very same lap.
What Could Have Been For Aston Martin
So, if we keep his pit-out from lap 55, subtract Alonso’s second pit-in from Lap 55 and his pit-out from 56, then he makes up 20.4s on Verstappen in Lap 55 alone (mostly due to VER’s stop and slow in-lap), but crucially another 6 seconds on Lap 56 (instead of the 2.4 seconds he lost to VER in actuality on 56).
In all, Alonso left 25s on the table by pitting a second time (right around the pit delta), and could’ve ended up 2.2s ahead of Verstappen at the end of Lap 56 had he gotten Inters the first time and ran them at their best pace for two laps.
In reality, he ended up losing 10.8s to Verstappen with his double-pit. The only reason he didn’t lose more was because Max struggled mightily on his pit-in lap as well as the previous lap.
In the last 22 laps, Verstappen pulled out another 4.8s on Alonso, so Max definitely had better pace once both were on the Inters. However, at Monaco, you could easily imagine Alonso being able to hold off the Red Bull, even with its quicker pace.
It’s impossible to know for sure if Aston Martin would’ve pulled out the win, but it certainly looked promising up until that pit stop blunder.
Staturdays 